During the last few weeks of school, I had my students play with a few new-to-us web 2.0 storytelling tools that Alan Levine introduced in his 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story wiki. Although we first tried JayCut, many of the students couldn’t get the program to load, so we moved onto Yodio.

When students registered for a free account, they were asked to provide their email address (yes) and a cell phone number (NO!) which the user is expected to record from.  Instead, I had my students record what they wanted on each image as an mp3 using Aviary (part of their Google Apps) or Audacity.  The mp3 can then be uploaded and added to the appropriate image.

As students discovered the steps needed to create the mp3 and upload it to their Yodio, they added their “how to” steps into a shared google docs.  This is the part that I loved the best about discovering new programs – students sharing their learning.

We used Yodio to visualize their poetry. As part of our science unit on ecosystems and watersheds, our class had the opportunity to plant trees for our local conservation authority and a farmer. Afterwards, students wrote free-verse poetry on the experience, then chose relevant royalty-free images for their Yodio.  Students were guided to choose a an appropriate number of images based on the length of their poem, and then record their poem as an mp3.

Tyler’s Branches of Hope (embedded in his blog)

Kori’s Caring Hands (posted on the Yodio site)

We also used Yodio to digitalize a shared writing story.  Students were shown an image taken by Colin Jagoe and as a class we brainstormed ideas for the beginning, middle and end in a shared google doc (another Alan Levine idea). Students then moved into their chosen groups of 2 or 3 and wrote their story based on Colin’s image and any ideas from the shared google doc.  After the shared writing was completed, each group found additional royalty-free images for their story.  Next, they divided their story into a script and recorded it as an mp3.

Colin Jagoe: Holding the Line

Ed, Tanner & Tyler’s narrative: The Forest Race

Yodio provides embed codes that do not work however smoothly with WordPress.  It does however allow you to autopost, but that wasn’t my preferred option, since the entire blog post was published online as soon as you hit post.  I’d prefer it to be saved as a draft first for further editing.  As an alternative, you can do what I did, add a hyperlink to the Yodio site.

Now that we’ve got a good idea of how to use this program, and the students like it, I’ll add it as another option for my students to use in order to support their learning and presentation skills first term.